Cities of Salt 1: Cities of Salt by Abdelrahman Munif

Author:Abdelrahman Munif [Munif, Abdelrahman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Middle East, Fiction
Published: 2021-11-09T04:33:55+00:00

48

BY THE TIME THE WORKERS RETURNED TO CAMP that afternoon, fifteen of them had been inter­viewed; the others were to be interviewed at an unspecified later date. Although some of them were quiet at first, not speaking, asking or answering ques­tions, a feeling of anger and unrest pervaded the camp. Their inner turmoil made the men behave moodily and raise their voices for no reason; some of them went straight to bed, though they did not usually go to bed this early.

When the other workers — those who had not been called in for interviews — returned early that evening the mood in the camp changed: the questions and discussions began. The ques­tioners were motivated by mere curiosity, not fear or misgiving, but once they had begun their ingenuous inquiries they were shocked by what they heard from those who had been inter­viewed.

“The bastards want to know everything,” said Ibrahim al-Nasir. “Even why my father got divorced and remarried. They wanted to know if I was unclean, because I didn’t pray all the time. They asked if I had a lot of wet dreams, and they laughed. The bastards want to know who has planted every seed and laid every egg in history.”

He spat angrily.

Fawaz bin Miteb al-Hathal could not keep his patience. Though he tried to keep quiet, he spoke up sharply and loudly enough for everyone to hear when one of the workers asked him to write letters for him — he wanted a letter of resignation and one to inform his family that he would come home soon.

“Did they tell you what they told me? ‘You’re one of the best workers we have. You have a future here. We’ve got to send you to America for training — you can learn English and go to college and someday you’ll be a manager.’ ” He paused to take a deep breath, then went on. “If you had been Miteb al-Hathal’s son they would have asked you, ‘We’d like you to tell us why your father quarreled with Ibn Rashed, and where he is now.’ ”

They had asked Suweyleh to sing, and when he curtly refused the red-bearded one told him that they only wanted to write down the words of some of the songs because they loved what they’d heard him sing at Dabbasi’s wedding. He hesitated and refused again, but finally had to give in because Naim kept nagging him: “These fellows just like our singing and only want to hear the words so that they can understand them.”

The men’s piecemeal narrations produced consternation; their attempts to convince the others that it was all true — what they were asked, and what the Americans wanted — did not wholly succeed. Some of the others felt that they were wrong to have told everything: perhaps they should have kept the sessions se­cret, as Naim had constantly warned them to.

It was the workers’ custom to go to Arab Harran every once, in a while to buy supplies and sit

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